Highland Rogue

by Mallory, Tess

  Well! This was the first time in her size-twelve life that anyone had called her small! And Quinn thought she was spunky! But he’d also said she wasn’t “his” lass. Well, maybe he just didn’t want to be presumptuous.

  Right.

  “The duke keeps those under arrest in what we call the dungeon. It lies back behind the manor house proper,” Bittiewas saying, and Maggie turned her attention back to the two men. “If Ian is alive, that is where he would be kept. There are guards who will know ye are not one of them, so ye must be careful.”

  Maggie frowned. Be careful? What difference would being careful make if there were guards?

  “Thank ye, Bittie. ’Tis a huge favor ye have done me and mine this day. When I get Ian out of Montrose’s clutches, ye will be rewarded handsomely.”

  Maggie’s mouth dropped open. What was he planning to do? Just stroll into the dungeon and kill a few guards and take off with his friend slung over his shoulders? If he was even still alive? Was the man out of his mind?

  “Are you out of your mind?” she shouted before she could stop herself.

  Quinn and Bittie turned and looked up at the loft. Maggielay flat on her stomach, peering over the side at them. She managed a slight smile and a wave.

  “Hi. Morning. Did you sleep well?” She hauled herself up from the floor and then glared down at the two men, hands on her hips. “And, oh yeah—are you out of your freaking mind?”

  Bittie looked at Quinn. “What did she say?”

  “Who knows?” Quinn folded his arms over his chest and shrugged. “Half the time I dinna ken anything she says.” He frowned as Maggie climbed down the ladder from the hayloft and then jumped the last few feet before turning to glare at him. She felt at a distinct disadvantage as she stood there in her pale pink pajamas, but she was determined to confront him.

  “I said, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ Are you daft?”

  The men exchanged glances. “Nay,” said Quinn. “Why should ye ask such a thing?”

  Maggie gestured to his clothing. “Please tell me that you aren’t disguising yourself as one of Montrose’s guards!”

  Quinn smiled at her slowly, sending a trickle of need through her veins. “All right, lass, I willna tell ye.” He turned to speak to Bittie again, and Maggie grabbed his arm and jerked him toward her.

  “Quinn, listen to me—you can’t do this. It’s insane. It’s suicidal. It’s kamikaze!”

  He shook his head. “Ye see now, I understood ye until just that wee last bit.”

  “You know what I’m saying.” She lifted her chin. “I thought this was why you brought me along. I’m supposed to find out if Ian is alive!”

  Bittie shot Quinn an inquisitive look. Quinn kept his gaze steadily on her.

  “Could ye leave us for a few moments, Bittie?” he asked.

  “Aye, Quinn.” The big man headed out of the stables, shaking his head. As soon as he was gone, Maggie turned on Quinn, but the shadow in his eyes made her postpone the lecture she’d quickly planned, and her voice softened.

  “Quinn, please don’t do this. Let’s stick to the plan.” She reached out one hand to his arm. He covered her hand with his.

  “Maggie, I was wrong to put so much blame upon ye. I dinna wish to place ye in danger. Ye will stay here with Bittieand—”

  “No, Quinn,” she said, cutting him off. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you do this.”

  He cocked one brow at her. “Oh I can’t, and ye won’t?”

  “No.” She released a pent-up breath. “Look, just think about it. I’m guessing that you are a wanted man around here, right? That it’s likely someone around here would recognize you?”

  He shrugged. “It doesna matter. It must be done.”

  “But why take such a stupid chance? If you’re caught nosing around and you’re captured, then who’s going to help Ian? On the other hand, no one knows me. I can do what you asked me to do in the first place—get a job in Montrose’s household and find out about Ian. Then, if”—she swallowed hard—“if he is alive, we can come up with a plan to set him free without getting you or anyone else killed!”

  Quinn leaned back against one of the stalls and gazed at her intently, the green flecks in his eyes growing deeper. “I thought ye dinna want to help me, to risk yerself where— what was it ye said—the people with guns were?”

  She felt the blush creeping up her neck and looked away. “That was before.”

  Quinn pushed away from the stall, and suddenly she was in his arms. “Aye, that was before. Before last night. Now I know I canna let ye take such a chance.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Quinn, I want to do this. It was my fault that Ian was captured and”—she reached up and smoothed the stubble on his jaw—“and I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”

  He took her hand and kissed the palm. “And do ye think I could bear it any better if something were to happen to ye, Maggie mine?”

  “There’s no danger to me,” she said, a little breathless. “All I have to do is be a scullery maid. Even if I’m caught where I’m not supposed to be, no one is going to suspect I’m helping you. I’d just get, I don’t know, my pay docked or something.”

  Quinn shook his head. “They talk fair strange in the colonies.” He gazed into her eyes for a long moment and when he spoke, his voice was tender. “Yer words make sense”—he smiled—“for once. Are ye sure about this?”

  She nodded. “Yes, it will be fine.”

  “I’ll agree, on one condition.”

  “What?”

  “If there’s even a hint of suspicion cast yer way, ye must leave immediately and come straight back here, to the stables.” His fingers bit into her shoulders, and Maggie shivered.What was it about this man that made her feel like a teenager caught in the throes of hormones and first love?

  She blinked. Love? She backed away from him and his hands fell back to his sides.

  “I agree,” she said. “Trust me.”

  “I do,” he said, closing the distance between them again. “With all of my heart.”

  Maggie laughed, the sound forced. “Quinn, we spent one night together. You don’t have to say things like that.”

  He cupped her face with his hand and tilted her chin upward.“I dinna do anything I dinna want to do.”

  She pressed her hands against the tailored red jacket he wore and sighed. “I never could resist a man in a uniform.”

  Then his mouth was on hers, and he picked her up in his arms and she was mindless with need and desire as he carried her into one of the empty stalls. The hay there was clean and fresh, thank goodness, but Maggie had to admit, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if hadn’t been, that’s how crazy she was to feel Quinn’s body next to hers again.

  They fell into the hay, and once again Quinn made everything disappear as he stoked the sizzle between them into a blazing fire.

  “Hurry up and finish the floor,” the cook said. “Jenny will be here soon to prepare the guards’ meals.”

  So far, on her first day spent working at the manor house, Maggie had washed about a million dishes, rinsed them, dried them, put them away, scrubbed the cabinets and the wooden countertops, swept the huge room, and was now scrubbing the floor. Her fingernails were ragged and sore, her back was killing her, and her knees—she couldn’t think about her knees, because if she did, she’d start crying, and she was not going to cry. She wouldn’t give the evil woman presiding over the kitchen that satisfaction.

  As she leaned down on the scrub brush once again, Maggiesuddenly realized what the cook had just said. “Jenny will be here soon to prepare the guards’ meals.” She smiled.

  “Jenny?” she asked aloud.

  Cook turned and crossed to her, staring down at the floor as if she might whip out some white gloves and start checking for dirt any moment. “Aye. She prepares supper for the men on guard duty.”

  Maggie looked up at the cook and let her mouth turn down and her gaze shift into pitiful. She had lea
rned a lot in the past few hours. “Och, Cook, ye are no goin’ to make me help her, are ye? Not after all I’ve done the day?” she whined, sitting with her shoulders slumped.

  The cook glared at Maggie, her second chin quivering with anger. “I wasna goin’ to, but since ye complain so heartily, that’s exactly what ye will do! And dinna be givingme any mouth aboot it! Now finish that floor!”

  Maggie groaned and started pushing the scrub brush around in a circle, but kept her head down to hide her smile. “Aye, mum,” she said.

  By the time she finished the floor Maggie was bone weary. The last thing she wanted to do was, well, anything at all. She wanted to soak in a hot tub and drink a tall glass of ice tea and sleep for a hundred years. She smiled grimly. Make that three hundred years and she’d be back where she belonged. But if Jenny prepared the meals for the guards, she probably delivered those meals as well.

  As she dragged herself up from the floor, a girl with pale blonde hair, who looked about sixteen, rushed into the kitchen, her face twisted with anxiety. She was about Maggie’s height, but thin as a rail. She wore a dark skirt and tea-coloredblouse, covered with a worn blue bodice. Strangely enough, the girl reminded her of Allie and Ellie when they were young.

  As Jenny took an apron from a hook by the door and tied it around her small waist, the girl looked fearfully towardthe cook, every muscle in her body and her face taut with strain. The cook grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to a large basket of potatoes and started lecturing on wasting food and not putting too much in each of the pewter bowls used to serve the guards.

  “Mind me now, Jenny,” the cook said, shaking a finger in the girl’s face, “or I’ll throw ye out. I’ve got this one now”—she jerked her thumb in Maggie’s direction—“and I can train her in yer place.”

  The girl’s face went ashen. “Oh, no, mum,” she said, her voice frantic. From across the room, Maggie glared at the cook’s back. The woman was a monster. The poor girl was shaking. “Dinna dismiss me, mum, please,” Jenny begged. “Please!”

  “Then earn yer keep!” Cook said, and shoved the girl toward Maggie. “This here is Maggie. She’ll be helpin’ ye cook the guards’ meals from now on. Mind that the two of ye dinna tarry with gossip and such or I’ll dismiss ye both! And I’d best not be hearing that either of ye doxies were flirting with Captain Pembroke again, or I’ll not only dismissye, but I’ll box yer ears!”

  She turned and lumbered out of the room, leaving Jenny crying in her wake. Maggie immediately crossed to the girl and put her arm around her.

  “Please don’t worry about what she said. I’m not going to be working here very long, and I won’t be taking your place.”

  Jenny wiped the tears from her face and looked up at Maggie, her blue eyes wide with fear. “Och, dinna be lettin’ Cook hear ye say such a thing. She’ll dismiss ye outright!”

  Maggie smiled and squeezed the girl’s frail shoulder, falling back into her brogue. “Then ye will have to keep my secret, eh Jenny?”

  “Oh, aye. I dinna wish to cause any trouble for ye.”

  “I will help ye all I can. By the way,” she said, trying to sound casual, “who are they guarding?”

  Jenny looked to the right and the left, probably to make sure the cook hadn’t returned; after all, the gargoyle had dictated no gossip. " ’ Tis just a rumor, but ’tis said that it is the Piper!”

  “The Piper?”

  “Aye, the notorious highwayman!”

  Maggie leaned away from her, relief washing through her. Ian. He was alive.

  “They say he will be hanged soon,” Jenny said.

  Yikes. “Really. Can the duke do that?” Jenny frowned at her, looking confused, and Maggie smiled brightly. “What are we feeding the guards tonight?”

  After a few minutes of talking companionably to the girl, Maggie saw Jenny begin to relax; she even smiled once or twice. The kitchen was large, with a wealth of wooden cabinets and countertops polished to a fine sheen. The sink had a hand pump, which Jenny showed her with pride. It was an amazing thing to the girl, having running water right there in the kitchen!

  If Maggie had any doubts about being in the past, they would have been resolved as she handled the dishes and pans that were definitely not from the twenty-first, or even the twentieth century. It took about an hour to prepare the meal of boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, and stringy beef, and by that time, Maggie felt she had made real headway in befriending the shy girl beside her.

  “I’m so glad to have yer help, Maggie,” Jenny said, as they finished dishing up the meal into the pewter bowls. “We can each carry a tray and finish the job in half the time.”

  “How many guards are there?” Maggie asked as she beganloading her tray.

  “Outside the dungeon there are two, Duncan and Charles, and downstairs, where the actual cells are, is another, James—a fine lad.”

  She smiled softly and Maggie smiled, too, certain that whoever James was, he was special to Jenny. Then the girl’s smile faded.

  “But be careful if Captain Pembroke is there,” she said. “Dinna raise yer eyes to him.”

  Her voice sounded shaky as she said this last. Maggie glanced over at her as Jenny put bowls and bread and tankards of ale on her own round wooden tray. Maggie had added a bowl of broth she’d skimmed from the top of a kettleof soup the cook had prepared for the staff, as well as ale and bread, for Ian. According to Jenny, prisoners were only fed once a day, at breakfast. Maggie narrowed her eyes. That was about to change.

  “Ye don’t—dinna care for Captain Pembroke, I’m thinkin’,” Maggie said, watching Jenny’s face. Jenny looked away, her fair complexion flushing red at the comment. “Who is he?”

  “He’s the captain of the guard,” she said. “He is a bad man,” she added softly. “He tells everyone that I have— offered myself to him.” She looked up, her blue eyes blazing with anger and tears. “’Tis no true—I despise him!” She lifted the corner of her apron to her face and burst into tears.

  Maggie set the tray down on the big island counter in the center of the kitchen and took her into her arms. Jenny clung to her. “Has he hurt ye, Jenny?” she whispered. “Has he touched ye?”

  The girl stopped crying abruptly and pushed away from her, looking even paler than before. “I shouldna have said anything. Please, dinna say anything to anyone. Captain Pembroke is the duke’s kin and if I were heard disparaging him—” She shivered, shaking her head. “Please.”

  Maggie felt the girl’s anguish as if it were her own. That was followed by an anger so deep she thought she would explode. How dare this Pembroke person lay hands on the girl? Had he raped her? She couldn’t bring herself to ask, but whatever he had done, it had left Jenny shattered. No wonder she shook when that old battle-axe, the cook, yelled at her.

  “I won’t say a word,” she assured her, then hurried on impulsively. “Let me take the guards their meals tonight,” Maggie said, even as her heartbeat quickened. No way was she letting Jenny face that bastard again!

  Jenny glanced up at her, a spark of hope in her eyes, but it quickly faded. “Thank ye, Maggie, but if Cook should find out I dinna do my part, she will turn me out. And CaptainPembroke isna always there.”

  “But—”

  “Thank ye,” Jenny said, once again calm. “If ye will just help me take the trays down, that will be fine.”

  The two carried their trays out the back door of the kitchen, and Jenny took the lead, heading for a stone building separate from the manor house. As they grew closer, Maggie saw two tall men standing outside what appeared to be a heavy iron door. The guards greeted Jenny warmly and gave Maggie a curious glance. After speaking with them for a few moments, Jenny led Maggie a few feet away.

  “They said that Captain Pembroke is downstairs,” Jenny whispered, her voice trembling.

  “Let me take the tray down, then,” Maggie said hastily.

  “Nay.” She shook her head. “James is down there tonight. Captain Pembroke knows that we lo
ve each other, and he never bothers me in front of him.” She jerked her head up, concern in her eyes. “But he might hurt ye, Maggie.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Maggie said, putting an extra lilt into her voice, hoping it would give her the confidence she needed to face what lay ahead.

  She had never considered herself brave. One of the hardest parts in raising Ellie and Allie had been the parent-teacherconferences. It had taken everything inside of her to deal with an irate English teacher or a disapproving math instructor, and just walking into the conference room had always twisted her stomach into knots. But she had done it, and taken up for her sisters when necessary and agreed with punishment when that was needed.

  This was different. This time she wasn’t standing betweena civilized educator and a wayward teen, but a frightenedyoung woman and a man who would use his power to take advantage of her. Maggie hardened her resolve and tightened her jaw as she followed Jenny back to the small porch where the guards stood in front of the large door.

  She kept her eyes down as one of the men stepped forwardand unlocked the door. Jenny ushered her inside, and Maggie looked up to find herself in a square, empty room occupied only by a table and four chairs, set in the far right corner. To the left was a door, and when they crossed to it, Maggie stared down into a dark stairwell lit dimly by a sconce, and she swallowed, hard.

  “I am goin’ with ye, Maggie,” Jenny said beside her. “James willna let anything happen to me.”

  Maggie swallowed hard. “Are you sure?” You’re a coward,Maggie Graham, she told herself.

  “Aye. I am sure.”

  The two women carried the tray to the bottom of the stairs, where there was an open space about ten feet by ten feet square that contained only a table pushed against the wall next to one of the two doorways that opened off to either side, leading away from the small room. Maggie glanced down the hallway to the left and saw a row of iron doors a few feet apart all the way down the wall. She shiveredat the thought of what might lie behind them.